CARLA BLEY: Carla´s Christmas Carols

CARLA BLEY
A notável pianista de vanguarda do jazz, Carla Bley, com o suporte do grande contrabaixista Steve Swallow e o auxilio luxuoso do Partyka Brass Quintet, registraram lindamente mais alguns clássicos natalinos. Destaque para o esplêndido arranjo para metais (a capella) de "The Christmas Song."
(CB)
ALBUM REVIEWS
Christmas music has been an enthusiasm of Carla Bley's for decades, and both traditional and non-traditional seasonal pieces are here subjected to her offbeat wit and idiosyncratic arranging skills. The material includes her inimitable arrangements of Christmas classics and a brace of Carla's own pieces - "Jesus Maria" (first recorded by Jimmy Giuffre back in 1961), and, giving the devil his due, "Hell's Bells". Carla's Christmas Carols was recorded in La Buissonne Studios in the South of France after a whirlwind tour of Europe at the end of 2008, and folds in two pieces from that tour (recorded live in Berlin). The pleasure that the musicians find in the material is unmistakable and, perhaps particularly after a glass of mulled wine, contagious.
--------
The optimistic attempts of jazz musicians (usually schmoozing singers) to generate lucrative seasonal cheer usually induce one to reach for the nearest John Zorn or Evan Parker album as an antidote. But you can always rely on Carla Bley to put an edge on the most familiarly sentimental melodies – even transplanting Christmas carols from the fireside to the jazz club, as she does here, with electric bass sidekick Steve Swallow, and the Partyka Brass quintet featuring the fine German jazz trumpeter Axel Schlosser. Bley (a church pianist in her childhood) puts God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman over Take Five's riff, lets Schlosser and trombonist Adrian Read loose on it, and echoes the closing theme from the piano with a completely different melody. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear has a New Orleans street-band's swing, Jesus Maria is a delicate exercise in shifting brass harmonies that turns into a swoony dance, and Holy Night is a vehicle for Steve Swallow's honeyed electric bass sound over a soul-ballad vamp that sounds like Anyone Who Had a Heart. It doesn't stitch up these much-loved melodies, but it does dress them very differently. I didn't think of Bing Crosby once.
~John Fordham, at The Guardian - november, 27 - 2009)
--------------------
CARLA BLEY: Carla´s Christmas Carols

TRACKS/FAIXAS
1. O Tannenbaum
2. Away In A Manger
3. The Christmas Song
4. Ring Christmas Bells
5. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen Part One, Part two
6. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
7. Hell's Bells
8. Jesus Maria
9. Jingle Bells
10. O Holy Night
11. Joy To The World